We investigate low-temperature transport properties of thin TiN superconducting films in the vicinity of the disorder-driven superconductor-insulator transition. In a zero magnetic field, we find an extremely sharp separation between superconducting and insulating phases, evidencing a direct superconductor-insulator transition without an intermediate metallic phase. At moderate temperatures, in the insulating films we reveal thermally activated conductivity with the magnetic field-dependent activation energy. At very low temperatures, we observe a zero-conductivity state, which is destroyed at some depinning threshold voltage V_T. These findings indicate formation of a distinct collective state of the localized Cooper pairs in the critical region at both sides of the transition.
The possibility of surface enhancement of superconductivity is examined experimentally. It is shown that single crystal tin samples with cold-worked surfaces represent a superconductor with a surface-enhanced order parameter (or negative surface extrapolation length b), whose magnitude can be controlled.
We analyze the superconductors TiNCl and ZrNCl from a local bonding perspective. Although TiNCl crystallizes in an orthorhombic structure and ZrNCl crystallizes in a hexagonal structure, both compounds show significant structural similarities, for example that both consist of layered metal-Nitrogen networks. The local bonding in those two structures is very similar, giving rise to a dispersive conduction band mostly consisting of metal-d -states. Upon doping both compounds show structural changes, which lead to short metal-metal distances, indicating a bonding interaction that might be importa…
Shear ruptures of Cu samples soldered with Sn96Ag4 and Sn60Pb40 alloys have been measured at 300 K and 77 K. An average degradation of about 37 % of the shear rupture strength has been observed at cold for samples soldered with the lead-free alloy. This effect can be attributed to the tin pest.
Tin sulfide (SnS) was successfully synthesized in single crystals by a melt and slow-cooling method. The obtained sample was characterized by an X-ray diffraction, an energy dispersive spectrometry, and an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Electrical transport properties in SnS were investigated under high pressure using a diamond anvil cell with boron-doped metallic diamond electrodes and undoped diamond insulating layer. We successfully observed an insulator to metal transition from 12.5 GPa and pressure-induced superconductivity at 5.8 K under 47.8 GPa as predicted by a theoretical calculat…
The paper by Mayoh and Garcia-Garcia [arXiv:1412.0029v1] is entitled "Can disorder really enhance superconductivity?". In our opinion, the answer given by the authors is not satisfactory, and we present the alternative picture. Our reply to the comment [arXiv:1502.06282] is added in the end, in order to reveal a series of untrue statements contained in it.
Transparent conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films, electrochemically intercalated with sodium or other cations, show tunable superconducting transitions with a maximum $T_c$ at 5 K. The transition temperature and the density of states, $D(E_F)$ (extracted from the measured Pauli susceptibility $χ_p$ exhibit the same dome shaped behavior as a function of electron density. Optimally intercalated samples have an upper critical field $\approx 4$ T and $Δ/{k_BT_c} \approx 2.0$. Accompanying the development of superconductivity, the films show a reversible electrochromic change from transpare…
We apply the Coherent Potential Approximation (CPA) to a simple extended Hubbard model with a nearest and next nearest neighbour hopping for disordered superconductors with s-, d- and p-wave pairing. We show how the Van Hove singularities in the electron density of states enhance the transition temperature Tc for exotic superconductors in a clean and weakly disordered system. The Anderson theorem and pair-breaking effects in presence of Van Hove singularity caused by non-magnetic disorder are also discussed.
Stanene, composed of tin atoms arranged in a single layer, is the tin analogue of graphene and past studies predicted it to be a topological insulator. An energy band gap (of $\sim 0.1$~eV) was obtained in previous calculations for the buckled honeycomb structure of stanene and, thus, phonon-mediated superconductivity in this material is ruled out. In this work we investigated, from first principles calculations within density functional theory (DFT), the possibility of producing phonon-mediated superconductivity in stanene by doping the material. It was found that doping with calcium (lithium…
With the motivation of discovering high-temperature superconductors, evolutionary algorithm is employed to search for all stable compounds in the Sn-H system. In addition to the traditional SnH$_4$, new hydrides SnH$_8$, SnH$_{12}$ and SnH$_{14}$ are found to be thermodynamically stable at high pressure. Dynamical stability and superconductivity of tin-hydrides are systematically investigated. I$\bar{4}$m2-SnH$_8$, C2/m-SnH$_{12}$ and C2/m-SnH$_{14}$ exhibit higher superconducting transition temperatures of 81, 93 and 97 K compared to the traditional compound SnH$_4$ with T$_c$ of 52 K at 200 …
Various tin hydrides SnHx (x = 4, 8, 12, 14) have been theoretically predicted to be stable at high pressures and to show high-critical-temperature superconductivity with Tc ranging from about 70 to 100 K. However, experimental verifications for any of these phases are still lacking to date. Here, we report on the in-situ synthesis, electrical resistance, and synchrotron x-ray diffraction measurements of SnHx at ~ 200 GPa. The main phase of the obtained sample can be indexed with the monoclinic C2/m SnH12 via comparison with the theoretical structural modes. A sudden drop of resistance and the…
We study bottom-up grown semiconductor indium antimonide nanowires that are coated with shells of tin. The shells are uniform in thickness. The interface between Sn and InSb is abrupt and without interdiffusion. Devices for transport are prepared by in-situ shadowing of nanowires using nearby nanowires as well as flakes, resulting in etch-free junctions. Tin is found to induce a hard superconducting gap in the range 600-700 micro-eV. Superconductivity persists up to 4 T in magnetic field. A tin island exhibits the coveted two-electron charging effect, a hallmark of charge parity stability. The…
Magnetization hysteresis loops of tin samples with an inverted opal structure are presented. The sample formed by tin particles with the size of 70 and 128 nm is found to be a type-I superconductor. The tin sample formed by 80 and 42 nm particles demonstrates an analog of intertype superconductivity: features of both type-I and II superconductors are observed on the magnetization isothermal curves. Behaviors of the irreversible and reversible magnetization support coexistence of type-I and II superconducting nanoparticles in this sample.
We analyze the evolution of the normal and superconducting electronic properties in epitaxial TiN films, characterized by high Ioffe-Regel parameter values, as a function of the film thickness. As the film thickness decreases, we observe an increase of in the residual resistivity, which becomes dominated by diffusive surface scattering for $d\leq20\,$nm. At the same time, a substantial thickness-dependent reduction of the superconducting critical temperature is observed compared to the bulk TiN value. In such a high quality material films, this effect can be explained by a weak magnetic disord…
We have studied the electrodynamic response of strongly disordered superconducting TiN films using microwave resonators, where the disordered superconductor is the resonating element in a high- quality superconducting environment of NbTiN. We describe the response assuming an effective pair-breaking mechanism modifying the density of states, and compare this to local tunnelling spectra obtained using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy. For the least disordered film (kFl = 8.7, Rs = 13 Ω), we find good agreement, whereas for the most disordered film (kFl = 0.82, Rs = 4.3 kΩ), there is a strong di…
We probe the effects of strong disorder (2.4 < kFl < 8.6) on superconductivity in thin films of niobium titanium nitride and titanium nitride by measuring the microwave electrodynamics in coplanar waveguide resonators. We find a gradual evolution of the electromagnetic response with disorder, deviating from Mattis-Bardeen theory, for both materials. This result can be understood as due to changes in the quasiparticle density of states, induced by the short elastic scattering length. The observations are consistent with a model using an effective pair breaker, dependent on the level of disorder…
ARPES and wide area, high resolution STM studies of a micaceous cuprate high temperature superconductor have shown strong nanoscale gap disorder, but the question of whether this disorder is intrinsic and necessary for HTSC, or merely incidental to either this material, or even only its surface, appears to be an open one. We present the case that it is merely incidental, and then review the evidence that strong disorder is actually an essential factor in generating this unprecedented phenomenon.
We study the phase diagrams and thermodynamic properties of a system of coexisting itinerant electrons and local pairs (LP), in the presence of diagonal disorder. The model considered takes into account both the charge exchange couplings, responsible for superconducting orderings, and the density-density interactions, which can stabilize charge ordered states in the system. Depending on the strength of the random on-site potential, the interactions and the particle concentrations the model is found to exhibit several various phases, including the homogeneous ones: superconducting (SC), charge …
We present a review of theoretical and experimental works on the problem of mutual interplay of Anderson localization and superconductivity in strongly disordered systems. We start with brief discussion of modern aspects of localization theory including the basic concept of scaling, self-consistent theory and interaction effects. After that we analyze disorder effects on Cooper pairing and superconducting transition temperature as well as Ginzburg-Landau equations for superconductors which are close to the Anderson transition. A necessary generalization of usual theory of ``dirty'' superconduc…
We analyze the interplay between superconductivity and the formation of bound pairs of fermions (BCS-BEC crossover) in 2D models of interacting fermions with small Fermi energy EF and weak attractive interaction, which extends to energies well above EF. The 2D case is special because one has to distinguish between bound state formation and superconductivity already at weak coupling. We briefly review the situation in the one-band model and then consider two different two-band models: the one with a hole and an electron band, and the one with two electron bands. In each case we obtain the bound…
We discuss intrinsic inhomogeneities of superconductive properties of uniformly disordered thin films with large dimensionless conductance g. It is shown that mesoscopic fluctuations, which usually contain a small factor 1/g, are crucially enhanced near the critical conductance g_c >> 1 where superconductivity is destroyed at T=0 due to Coulomb suppression of the Cooper attraction. This leads to strong spatial fluctuations of the local transition temperature and thus to percolative nature of the thermal superconductive transition.
We numerically study the interplay between superconductivity and disorder on the graphene honeycomb lattice with on-site Hubbard attractive interactions U using a spatially inhomogeneous self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) approach. In the absence of disorder there are two phases at charge neutrality. Below a critical value Uc for attractive interactions there is a Dirac semimetal phase and above it there is a superconducting phase. We add scalar potential disorder to the system, while remaining at charge neutrality on average. Numerical solution of the BdG equations suggests that while…
More recently STM experimets present firm evidence of some kind of charge modulation in underdoped cuprates. The peculiar observations of the above experiments are located in the so called pseudo-gap region of the phase diagram, just over the superconducting-dome. The model that will be used captures in a simple way the idea that the pseudo-gap phase is formed of bound fermion pairs which are close to a CDW instability but generally do not have long range order due to quenched disorder. Thus the charge degrees of freedom will be modeled by an Ising order parameter in the presence of quenched d…
Unconventional superconductors host a plethora of interesting physical phenomena. However, the standard theory of superconductivity suggests that unconventional pairing is highly sensitive to disorder, and hence can only be observed in ultraclean systems. We find that due to an emergent chiral symmetry, spin-orbital locking can parametrically suppress pair decoherence introduced by impurity scattering in odd-parity superconductors. Our work demonstrates that disorder is not an obstacle to realize odd-parity superconductivity in materials with strong spin-orbit coupling.
We discuss the influence of disorder on the critical temperature Tc of a p-wave superconductor. To describe disordered Sr2RuO4 we use the extended Hubbard model with random site energies treated in the Coherent Potential Approximation.
Temperature- and magnetic-field dependent measurements of the resistance of ultrathin superconducting TiN films are presented. The analysis of the temperature dependence of the zero field resistance indicates an underlying insulating behavior, when the contribution of Aslamasov-Larkin fluctuations is taken into account. This demonstrates the possibility of coexistence of the superconducting and insulating phases and of a direct transition from the one to the other. The scaling behavior of magnetic field data is in accordance with a superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) driven by quantum ph…
When a Josephson junction array is built with hybrid superconductor/metal/superconductor junctions, a quantum phase transition from a superconducting to a two-dimensional (2D) metallic ground state is predicted to happen upon increasing the junction normal state resistance. Owing to its surface-exposed 2D electron gas and its gate-tunable charge carrier density, graphene coupled to superconductors is the ideal platform to study the above-mentioned transition between ground states. Here we show that decorating graphene with a sparse and regular array of superconducting nanodisks enables to cont…
We study how a randomness of either boson or fermion site energies affects the superconducting phase of the boson fermion model. We find that, contrary to what is expected for s-wave superconductors, the non-magnetic disorder is detrimental to the s-wave superconductivity. However, depending in which subsystem the disorder is located, we can observe different channels being affected. Weak disorder of the fermion subsystem is responsible mainly for renormalization of the single particle density of states while disorder in the boson subsystem directly leads to fluctuation of the strength of the …
The effects of chain disorder on superconductivity in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-δ} are discussed within the context of a proximity model. Chain disorder causes both pair-breaking and localization. The hybridization of chain and plane wavefunctions reduces the importance of localization, so that the transport anisotropy remains large in the presence of a finite fraction $δ$ of oxygen vacancies. Penetration depth and specific heat measurements probe the pair-breaking effects of chain disorder, and are discussed in detail at the level of the self-consistent T-matrix approximation. Quantitative agreement with…
The interplay between disorder and superconductivity is a subtle and fascinating phenomenon in quantum many body physics. The conventional superconductors are insensitive to dilute nonmagnetic impurities, known as the Anderson's theorem. Destruction of superconductivity and even superconductor-insulator transitions occur in the regime of strong disorder. Hence disorder-enhanced superconductivity is rare and has only been observed in some alloys or granular states. Because of the entanglement of various effects, the mechanism of enhancement is still under debate. Here we report well-controlled …
We present the results of the comparative study of the influence of disorder on transport properties in continuous and nanoperforated TiN films. We show that nanopatterning turns a thin TiN film into an array of superconducting weak links and stimulates both, the disorder- and magnetic field-driven superconductor-to-insulator transitions, pushing them to lower degree of disorder. We find that nanopatterning enhances the role of the two-dimensional Coulomb interaction in the system transforming the originally insulating film into a more pronounced insulator. We observe magnetoresistance oscilla…
On the basis of the recently proposed self-consistent theory of metal- insulator transition in strongly disordered systems, taking into account interaction effects, we study transition temperature $T_{c}$ suppression in disordered superconductors for the wide disorder interval --- from weakly disordered metal up to Anderson insulator, induced by "Coulomb pseudogap" formation in the density of states. It is shown that for a number of systems this theory provides rather satisfactory fit of experimental data.
Disordered thin films close to the superconducting-insulating phase transition (SIT) hold the key to understanding quantum phase transition in strongly correlated materials. The SIT is governed by superconducting quantum fluctuations, which can be revealed for example by tunneling measurements. These experiments detect a spectral gap, accompanied by suppressed coherence peaks that do not fit the BCS prediction. To explain these observations, we consider the effect of finite-range superconducting fluctuations on the density of states, focusing on the insulating side of the SIT. We perform a con…
Enhancement of superconductivity by disorder in Remeika-type quasiskutterudites
Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences（波兰科学院低温与结构研究所）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Wrocław University of Science and Technology（弗罗茨瓦夫科技大学理论物理研究所）
A fundamental connection between superconductivity and quantum spin fluctuations in underdoped cuprates, is revealed. A variational calculation shows that {\em Cooper pair hopping} strongly reduces the local magnetization $m_0$. This effect pertains to recent neutron scattering and muon spin rotation measurements in which $m_0$ varies weakly with hole doping in the poorly conducting regime, but drops precipitously above the onset of superconductivity.
In arXiv:1301.3829 and arXiv:1501.05148 I. M. Suslov proposes a theoretical description for the interplay between disorder and superconductivity that, among other things, claims to predict situations where superconductivity is enhanced by disorder. In this comment we show that Suslov's results do not make any sound predictions relating to this problem. Suslov also suggests that the percolation approach recently employed by the authors to compute the global critical temperature of inhomogeneous superconductors induced by weak multifractality is not satisfactory. We refute Suslov's opinion using…
We explore the interplay of a charge density wave (CDW) order and s-wave superconductivity (sSC) in a disordered system. Recent experiments on 1T-TiSe_2, where the pristine sample has a commensurate CDW order and the superconductivity appears upon copper intercalation, motivates our study. Starting with an extended Hubbard model, with parameters which yield a CDW ground state within Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov formalism in pure systems, we show that the addition of disorder quickly wipes out the global charge order by disrupting periodic modulation of density at some (low) strength of disorder. Al…
Disorder induced phase slip (PS) events appearing in the current voltage characteristics (IVCs) are reported for two-dimensional TiN thin films produced by a robust substrate mediated nitridation technique. Here, high temperature annealing of Ti/Si3N4 based metal/substrate assembly is the key to produce majority phase TiN accompanied by TiSi2 and elemental Si as minority phases. The method itself introduces different level of disorder intrinsically by tuning the amount of the non-superconducting minority phases that are controlled by annealing temperature (Ta) and the film thickness. The super…
The interplay between superconductivity and charge density waves (CDW) in $H$-NbSe2 is not fully understood despite decades of study. Artificially introduced disorder can tip the delicate balance between two competing forms of long-range order, and reveal the underlying interactions that give rise to them. Here we introduce disorders by electron irradiation and measure in-plane resistivity, Hall resistivity, X-ray scattering, and London penetration depth. With increasing disorder, $T_{\textrm{c}}$ varies nonmonotonically, whereas $T_{\textrm{CDW}}$ monotonically decreases and becomes unresolva…
The critical effect of disorder on the two-dimensional (2D) surface superconductor Si(111)-($\sqrt{7}\times\sqrt{3}$)-In is clarified by comparing two regions with different degrees of disorder. Low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy measurements reveal that superconductivity is retained in the less disordered region, judging from the characteristic differential conductance ($dI/dV$) spectra and from the formation of vortices under magnetic fields. In striking contrast, the absence of those features in the highly disordered region shows that superconductivity is strongly suppressed ther…
We calculate the dynamic effective electron-electron interaction potential for a low density disordered two-dimensional electron gas. The disordered response function is used to calculate the effective potential where the scattering rate is taken from typical mobilities from recent experiments. We investigate the development of an effective attractive pair potential for both disordered and disorder free systems with correlations determined from existing numerical simulation data. The effect of disorder and correlations on the superconducting critical temperature Tc is discussed.
We investigate the effect of strong disorder on a system with strong electronic repulsion. In absence of disorder, the system has a d-wave superconducting ground-state with strong non-BCS features due to its proximity to a Mott insulator. We find that, while strong correlations make superconductivity in this system immune to weak disorder, superconductivity is destroyed efficiently when disorder strength is comparable to the effective bandwidth. The suppression of charge motion in regions of strong potential fluctuation leads to formation of Mott insulating patches, which anchor a larger non-s…
A rather unique feature of the two-dimensional electron gas (2-DEG) formed at the interface between the two insulators LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 is to host both gate-tunable superconductivity and strong spin-orbit coupling. In the present work, we use the disorder generated by Cr substitution of Al atoms in LaAlO3 as a tool to explore the nature of superconductivity and spin-orbit coupling in these interfaces. A reduction of the superconducting Tc is observed with Cr doping consistent with an increase of electron-electron interaction in presence of disorder. In addition, the evolution of spin-orbit co…
The ferroelectric degenerate semiconductor Sn$_{1-δ}$Te exhibits superconductivity with critical temperatures, $T_c$, of up to 0.3 K for hole densities of order 10$^{21}$ cm$^{-3}$. When doped on the tin site with greater than $x_c$ $= 1.7(3)%$ indium atoms, however, superconductivity is observed up to 2 K, though the carrier density does not change significantly. We present specific heat data showing that a stronger pairing interaction is present for $x > x_c$ than for $x < x_c$. By examining the effect of In dopant atoms on both $T_c$ and the temperature of the ferroelectric structural phase…
Emergent superconductivity upon disordering a topological insulator
Universidade Federal de Goiás（戈亚斯联邦大学）；Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；Université Paris-Saclay, Institut de Physique Théorique, CEA, CNRS（巴黎萨克雷大学、理论物理研究所、法国原子能和替代能源委员会、法国国家科学研究中心）
Pd-intercalated ErTe$_3$ is studied as a model system to explore the effect of "intertwined" superconducting and charge density wave (CDW) orders. Despite the common wisdom that superconductivity emerges only when CDW is suppressed, we present data from STM and AC susceptibility measurements that show no direct competition between CDW order and superconductivity. Both coexist over most of the intercalation range, with uniform superconductivity over length scales that exceed the superconducting coherence length. This is despite persisting short-range CDW order and increased scattering from the …
The structural or electronic symmetry breaking of the host lattice is a recurrent phenomenon in many quantum materials, including superconductors. Yet, how these broken symmetry states affect the electronic pair wave function of superconductivity have been rarely elucidated. Here, using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and first-principles calculations, we identify the broken rotational symmetry via stripe ordering on the (001) surface of perovskite BaBi3 films grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and show that it consequently leads to anisotropic superconductivity with twofold symmet…
Superconducting instability can occur in three-dimensional quadratic band crossing semimetals only at a finite coupling strength, due to the vanishing of density of states at the quadratic band touching point. Since realistic materials are always disordered to some extent, we study the effect of short-ranged correlated disorder on this superconducting quantum critical point, using a controlled loop-expansion applying dimensional regularization. The renormalization group (RG) scheme allows us to determine the RG flows of the various interaction strengths, and shows that disorder destroys the su…
In bulk materials superconductivity is remarkably robust with respect to non-magnetic disorder. In the two-dimensional limit however, the quantum condensate suffers from the effects produced by disorder and electron correlations which both tend to destroy superconductivity . The recent discovery of superconductivity in single atomic layers of Pb, the striped incommensurate (SIC) and $\sqrt{7}\times\sqrt{3}$ Pb/Si(111), opened an unique opportunity to probe the influence of well-identified structural disorder on two-dimensional superconductivity at the atomic and mesoscopic scale. In these two …
The disorder-induced Superconductor-to-Insulator Transition in amorphous Nb$_{x}$Si$_{1-x}$ two-dimensional thin films is studied for different niobium compositions $x$ through a variation of the sample thickness $d$. We show that the critical thickness $d_c$, separating a superconducting regime from an insulating one, increases strongly with diminishing $x$, thus attaining values of over 100 Å. The corresponding phase diagram in the $(d, x)$ plane is inferred and related to the three-dimensional situation. The two-dimensional Superconductor-to-Insulator Transition well connects with the three…
In view of recent developments in the investigation on cuprate high-T${}_{\rm c}$ superconductors and the spin-Peierls compound CuGeO${}_{3}$, we study the effect of dilute impurity doping on the spin-Peierls state in quasi-one dimensional systems. We identify a common origin for the emergence of antiferromagnetic order upon the introduction of static vacancies, and superconductivity for mobile holes.
We have studied the intrinsic normal and superconducting properties of the oxypnictide LaFePO. These samples exhibit bulk superconductivity and the evidence suggests that stoichiometric LaFePO is indeed superconducting, in contrast to other reports. We find that superconductivity is independent of the interplane residual resistivity $ρ_0$ and discuss the implications of this on the nature of the superconducting order parameter. Finally we find that, unlike $T_c$, other properties in single-crystal LaFePO including the resistivity and magnetoresistance, can be very sensitive to disorder.
